Installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Today I have installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview and I must say that it is one of the greatest windows experiences in my life. Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a total different operating system when compared to previous Windows operating systems and it is a really amazing.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview

What is Windows 8 Consumer Preview

On 29 February 2012, Microsoft released Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the beta version of Windows 8, build 8250. For the first time since Windows 95, the Start button is no longer present on the taskbar, though the Start screen is still triggered by clicking the bottom-left corner of the screen and by clicking Start in the Charm.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a follow-up of the Windows 8 Developer Preview, which was released last September. While the Windows 8 Developer Preview was mainly aimed for developers and IT professionals, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is aimed for all kind of users including IT professionals to end users.

The difference between the two is, the Consumer Preview includes more features such as wall-to-wall web browsing, full touch screen support, and of course the new look of the Windows 8 UI, making the preview closer to final product expected to come out later this year.

Installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview is pretty much straight forward, one thing to note is if you are using VMware and if you try to install Windows 8 Consumer Preview on a version prior to VMware Workstation 8.0, you will get this error "HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED". Well I have faced this on VMware 7.0. But it was a clean installation on VMware Workstation 8.0.

HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED

Another fatal error you can possibly face, is "DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION". The cause of this error as I found out is Windows 8 Consumer Preview can't communicate with one of the hardware devices connected your computer. For me it was my internet dongle, and first place I have configured my virtual machine's network as a Bridged connection with my physical computer. Then when Windows 8 is finalizing the installation, when readying it's devices it threw me this error. 

Second time I configured  my virtual machine's network as NAT with my physical computer. Then there was no error.

DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION

So after successful installation, for a moment I really wanted to leave Windows 7 behind and move into Windows 8 even though it's still in beta stage. I am pretty sure with upcoming Windows 8 and with Visual Studio 11, the whole world will experience amazing applications that they have never seen before.

Happy Coding.

Regards,
Jaliya